Fiscal Scolds and Universal Coverage

How is it that social conservatives can argue for our universal obligations to unborn children, at whatever stage of development, and then in the next breath argue against universal health coverage? What, being born ends our obligation to our fellow human being?

I don't think so.

See this post http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2009/06/why-are-we-asking-for-health-

care-reform/ and comments for background.

Jake

Exceptionalism and Localism

Great essay at FPR by Kenneth McIntyre - Exceptionalism and Localism. So good, in fact, I stole his title. :)

When I get to the end, this end, "In this view, there is no claim that local self-government will necessarily be virtuous or that it should be allowed carte blanche, but merely that the diffusion of power will lessen the possibility of governmental tyranny." after having read this (paragraph above) , "Though I have a great deal of sympathy for the republican defense of self-government, I think that the second argument for local autonomy is even stronger." I get a certain sense of cognitive dissonance. Social conservatives talk about obligations for individuals but autonomy for communities. Frankly, I don't get why communities of individuals should get autonomy if the individuals themselves do not.

In truth, what it points out is the confusion in the minds of many about just who has autonomy. I do, you do, she does, he does. Every other kind of autonomy is built upon that understanding, an understanding social conservatives seem curiously reluctant to acknowledge.

Jake

Hypocrites? No, I don't think so.

Susan McWilliams put up an interesting post at FPR, So: Are We Hypocrites?. The point of hte post is to address the question of hypocrisy with respect to be all about local and community while simultaneously putting your thoughts out on an internet blog.

The answer is, no, Susan, you are not. The world of ideas is much larger than any physical community. You are not building online friendships (thought friendships may develop) you are putting your ideas out there and then defending them (sort of >:). It is no different the reviewing a peer's publications. You do more good at FPR that you could do without FPR.

Which is kind of Utilitarian, if you think about it. :)

Jake

Now Katherine Has Done It!!!!

Katherine, in this post, Workaday Morals at FPR, has gone and sent me 'round the bend once again.

She opens with a standard opening, and Lord knows, I shouldn't get sucked in, but I do, I just can't help it.

"Those of us foolish enough to call ourselves “conservative” are forced to admit that culturally and politically at least we live amidst less and less worth conserving. We can and should continue to mind our own business, and tackle daily life as cheerfully as possible, but some days one wants to take up the fight for the reformation of this bloated and addled culture of ours. Where to find a cudgel?"

Just who do you want to cudgel, Kate? Just who are you to think you have all the solutions? It's not like the past, even the past you so want to recreate, wasn't a hard luck time for most people. Basically, it SUCKED for all but a fortunate few.

There was NEVER a freaking land of milk and honey. Why Kate and her fellow travelers don't get that is beyond me. As hard as it is to believe, Kate, we are in the best of times for the most of the people. More children live to adulthood, more adults have more opportunity than ever before - opportunity to be conservatives, or liberals, or Christians or whatever. And it's all a CHOICE.

Could things be better? Good gravy, YES!!!!! Whining about how the past is past and oh so much better (which it wasn't) is not helping. Helping is doing exactly what you say you should do - being particular in YOUR life. I know you want to save all the babies in Bangladesh, and a little money goes a long wayto help so send some over there, but for most of us, doing the best we can to be good neighbors, coworkers, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters, children and parents - that is the good that we can do.

So go do it! Nobody's stopping you!! Hell, we'll all cheer you on!!!!

FPR Social Conservatives (not all of them) - always looking backward into the historical mists and missing what's happening right now. Sheesh.

Jake

Utilitarianism

Somewhere on Up Turned I got accused of being a utilitarian. Not being sure of all the historical ramifications of agreeing or disagreeing, I ignored the statement. Having had a chance to refresh my memory, I have to completely agree with whoever said it.

Not that we agree on the meaning of utilitarian - in context, I believe the author of that accusation meant that I exist somewhere in the hedonist/moral relativist spectrum. What I mean is something entirely different.

What I mean is that I treat each person as equal in value to me. That can be seen a relativistic, but I kind of assume that I have too high an opinion of myself, so if anything, I err on the side of too much value. :)

I also mean that "pleasure" in the JS Mill sense is not simply, or even mostly, pleasure in the senses, but pleasure in doing right, in caring about others, in being a true friend.

Autonomy, caring about others, explicity arguing for the good of all - yeah, I can get behind the utilitarian smear.

It's kind of funny, but everything social conservatives argue for is implicitly utilitarian - everybody would be better off if only they would do things the socon way!!!! But of course, everyone would not be better off. Just the socons - for a while, until things came tumbling down around their ears, 'cause, you know, that's already happened once or twice?

Jake

James, James, James

James put up a post congratulating FPR on being both a great place to essay and one so open to discussion.

The Gain is Gloss: Thanks to FPR and Its Readers

In his essay, which I mostly like, he disses internet blogs as, I don't know, too common or something. Certainly there are lots of kinds of blogs, and crap blogs are as likely to be found as good ones, but FPR is just another blog. I love the essay approach, but James, let's be honest - most of you all could say what you had to say in one fifth of the time and space it takes you on FPR. What I am saying here is that you like the sound of your own words. Man up!

As for commenters - well, I love them. Even when they just agree with the poster.

Oh well. :)

Jake

A Bioethics Rooted In Love

John, at Upturned Earth, pointed me to this essay, Toward a Bioethics of Love by Helen Rittelmeyer at Doublethink Online.

I think this is a valuable discussion. Social conservatives struggle with the whole autonomy thing. I don't know if it's because they can't refute it without resorting to God, or because they believe that God already answered the question and there is no autonomy. Perhaps if they choose the root for bioethics, maybe we can find a way to a common ground that respects the beliefs of each kind of person.

Here is what I had to say:

I think you misstate Autonomy. Autonomy comes to us from ancient Greek: αυτονόμος autonomos, from auto “self” + nomos, “law”: one who gives oneself his/her own law. In modern use in ethics and philosophy, this means self-determination in the context of moral choices. In medicine, for example, this often takes the form of “informed consent” - the autonomous individual chooses for his- or herself. So when you say, “They think so because they believe people are fundamentally autonomous—a strange fiction.” And you are correct, except that you, too, hold some strange fiction that inter-dependence somehow compromises autonomy. It doesn’t. Autonomy is about choice in the context of constraints, external or internal. A person with certain specific disabilities is less self-sufficient than a more or less normally functioning human being, but his or autonomy is not thereby lessened.

In your 91% are included several genetic malformations other than DS. Among them is Anencephaly, a truly horrific malformation where there is essentially no head above the eyes and no brain much above the stem. Babies who survive birth live for hours only. This does not obviate your point about 15% so much as provide a footnote - there may in fact be lives so short and horrific that to not terminate the pregnancy is to insure unimaginable suffering of the parents and the baby.

Science has no vision of the world at all. Some, or even most, practitioners of science do. That vision is as multifaceted as the human beings that hold it. Undoubtedly some human beings, scientists included, envision a perpetually comfortable and easy world. Others hope to reduce disease, or improve the environment, or find some measure of peace for the mentally ill. You have created a straw man, a scientist that may or may not exist for real, but one that surely does NOT hold the view of many, or even most, scientists.

Finally, you have presented no rationale for exchanging love for autonomy as a basis for bioethics. Explain to me how that would work on an informed consent form. Explain to me how an individual making a moral choice could sublet that choice to another, even if love was at the heart of the relationship. Who bears responsibility for the action that follows the moral choice?

As a sketch, this is more of a thin straw. I wouldn’t care that it so were it not that so many conservatives seek just such a straw to which they can cling in their efforts to shut their ears to ethics discussions rooted in autonomy.

There may be such a thing as a bioethics rooted in love. I encourage you to sketch out your thoughts more fully, so that discussion can continue.

I hope she pursues her sketch further. This kind of discussion can only help.

Jake

Update - it seems I am not welcome at Doublethink, either. Another post deleted. Such is life!

'Nuther update - Doublethink put the post back. That's thinking twice? Also, read comments for my response (not the only one, just the last one) to John at UE.